Archive: July 2013

For a technology passionate like me, visiting Google and Twitter HQ on the same day is like meeting Superman and Batman in a bar. These are two of the most important Internet companies in the world, and the example many of us dream to follow.

Carlos Gómez and Albert Orriols were our hosts at Googleplex in Mountain View. What a privilege to visit their awesome HQ. The complex is like a huge candy shop where anyone would love to work, where brilliant professionals meet and the perfect place to work. Wow, they even have a device to have a nap whenever you want! Carlos and Albert kindly answered all the questions we had about the present and future of the second largest tech company in the world.

After a short break for lunch, we headed to the Startup Embassy, our second home here in Silicon Valley, where Angelika Blendstrup helped us to enhance our communication skills and to prepare our pitch for the D-day, July 29th. The tip of the day: “keep it simple, use short sentences”.

What can I say about Twitter? Sorry but I cannot describe it 140 characters or less. @cesardielo, @pauto, @monica and @esten guided us through their great headquarters in San Francisco, and explained the keys for Twitter’s success. I especially liked the fact that all their engineers stop for a whole week and work on their own ideas. That’s the engine of innovation!

On the other hand, we are working very hard to surprise you all on July 29th with our four awesome projects. Stay tuned!

We have arrived at the End of Phase 3 “prototyping”, GOD, time flies! I’m not going to enter in details here but today I took a shower while I was eating my breakfast. Time is golden now!

We started the day with a special visit. Three partners from Everis, Angel García, Marc Alba and Jose Luis Albentosa. They shared with us their core vision, attitud makes the difference.

We have the opportunity to pitch them our project and also receive valuable feedback. For my team (education) we had an extra preasure because they are our clients. Fortunately, they found our idea very interesting and gave us great mentorship in order to see the BIG PICTURE and also opened us some doors to explorate.

It was a stressful but very rewarding and fun day, and we accomplished our missio!

Later while during a short break for lunck Rosa talked to us about Burning Man and suddenly a person behind us stood up and talked to us, they were organizers of the founding team of Burning Man. This can only happen in Silicon Valley.

During the afternoon we started phase 4 with a Communication masterclass with Cristina Salvador who gave us great insights. I found the following the most interesting:

You can never stop watching your audience, if it can’t be with your vision do it with your hands

Metaphors are key

Do a stellar ending with strong words

We also had the opportunity to put in practice all the lessons with an actual pitch competition with a special guest, Jordi Argente VC and president of the chamber of commerce in San Francisco. He gave us great tips in order to understand the Venture Capitalist psychology in order to raise money.

In order to sell you have to understand their mind

Don’t just look for a VC company look for the correct Partner

Have an ambitious project

Capacity to grow

Have patents or protections to reduce risk

Have traction

And we couldn’t end up without a pitch competition. bravoo!!! For all of you, here are the winners:

This was a quite peculiar day in Imagine, a day that, itself, could be a great metaphor of life.

We had our first (and last i guess☺) half free day of the program.

San Francisco was, finally, there for us to explore! Everyone decided how to spend these 5 hours without organization and the sensation was different for every Dreamer. I personally decided to enjoy not knowing what to do or expect from the day, not having a plan after 20 days of tight schedules; I decided to just flow with the day, walking by with no destination and no more intention than to enjoy every single breath of this wonderful city, that is already our second home. I tried to integrate the amazing experience we are living and, step by step, I felt in my body again. I needed it. Curiously, at the end many Dreamers ended up walking up & down in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, where the hippy movement was originally born. Plenty of weird vintage shops, amazing vinyl collections and relaxed coffee bistros.

You can feel freedom walking by in every single corner. A wide range of possibility is there out and people know it. Homeless are laid in the park, kids are playing few meters away and the police jus passes by, so naturally.

During the afternoon, we met at Ocean Beach for a surprise activity organized by Javi Ideami- alias Volandino. We have been all given a crazy paper map with a drawing and 35 spatial references between one another – a total of a 30 square meters aprox- and a mission: we had 1 hour to recreate the drawing, with the exact proportion, colors and details, on the beach! Sincerely, the challenge was not easy at all and still, as the Dreamers we are, we didn’t doubt for a single moment in diving ourselves into the adventure. Immediately, we organize ourselves in different groups to define roles and optimize resources. We tried, we mistook, we had to begin again a couple of times– proportions were tough to respect. But the end, we learned how to coordinate better and found new ways to act as a living organism, where every organ has its function and, conscious of the other’s work, is autonomous and interdependent at the same time.

That’s how we succeeded in one of the most amazing challenge of this Imagine, without even discovering it until we gain the global “systemic” perspective, hiking up to the hill and look behind us, to the exterminate beach in front of us.
We all felt a deep emotion inside. We had created that wonderful image – an open box and a balloon representing our world flying – from nothing! I realized then that when we were working, on the beach, it was like our everyday life and, even more, here in Imagine: doing, acting, learning, collaborate, fail and try again, going on and strength ourselves through individual and group work. Alone, you cannot achieve the same result. Now, I also realize the weird feeling of the past days: being immersed in this amazing Imagine reality, we cannot pretend to be objectives as we are seeing the reality from inside. We need to walk away a bit and find a new perspective to build consciousness. Once Imagine will end, we will surely be able to see this month and every single experience with a new perspective, and realize what is the “Imagine drawing” that was shaped in our inner self, this time from our individuality. As, for sure, that drawing will be different for everyone of us. And, for sure, as the beach experience, we’ll never forget it as a group.

Imagine is leaving a big footprint in our lives, according to its mission, even from, inside the frame, we are not 100% aware… yet. …
Thank you so much Ideami for this amazing activity!
The adventure continues, 10 days left!

We started the day with a delicious breakfast at Palo Alto’s Paris Baguette, where coffe tastes like coffe and pastrery is quite good. After that we rode to Stanford. There we shoot some pictures at the library for our final presentation, since we are not done prototyping yet. We had Borja shinning as the young modeling promise he is.

After eating some greasy sandwiches, we went to the amazing new Juniper HQ. Helena Brugada received us and we started a workshop on future scenario development – after presenting ourselves with a present and future picture -. She accomplished what seems impossible: funny and educational at the same time.

Then we ran to WazeHQ where we meet VP Di-Ann Eisnor. As you might already know, Waze was acquired by Google for 1.1B. We got to know the company better and the ‘We are the Waze, we are commuters’ song, which the Waze team composed to celebrate the recent acquisition. We all left the offices singing their song and with a big smile on our face. What a great experience!

We finished the day with some unframed art at the The Wallery exposition hosted by Silvia Langa, who had been at our center a few days earlier presenting her company.

I am aware that, when some of my friends see my photos on Facebook, they believe that I am on a 1-month holiday visiting the nicest places in the Bay Area and doing Supertramps everywhere. Well… this is actually right because I am having the best time of my life, but there is a huge workload behind.

Today Xavi wanted to be disruptive so he picked us up at 7:47. Well… the reason for this unusual time is that our friend Dídac Lee had to take a flight back to Barcelona. Great meeting you, Dreamer!

This is a critical week at L’Atelier, where our projects are becoming tangible solutions, but fortunately today we have the pleasure to welcome three outstanding visitors.

Just a few months ago, Silvia Langa created The Wallery, a place where a unique selection of international and emerging artists design wallpaper, murals and vinyls for your living room, car, smartphone,… I want one of these! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B5lH4YyDaM

And what can I say about Puddle.com? Jean Claude Rodríguez has created the “social banking” concept where you can lend and borrow some money from your friends. The old “village banking” gone social. That simple. That successful.

The last activity of the day was the prototyping master class with Hugo Giralt, CEO from Propelland. Hugo and his team are helping us to transform our ideas into effective promotional stories. In just a few days you will be able to see the results. Keep up the hard work, dreamers!

The beginning of phase 3 in Imagine started with an introduction to prototyping with Josep Lluís Sánchez. After lunch, we headed to HUB, a community that provides co-working spaces that inspire, connect, and empower people to realize enterprising ideas for sustainable impact. Marie Haller and Anna Guardiola gave us a speech about their core values and mission.HUB is a B corp, i.e., a Benefit Corporation, a corporate form for for-profit entities that want to consider society and the environment in addition to profit in their decision making process. As stated in their profile, they believe that “trust, collaboration and courage shape communities where ideas and change can thrive”. These core values make up their DNA and guide them in reaching social and environmental benchmarks.

Next day, our Imagineta gave us a ride to Singularity University, at NASA Ames Research Park, in Mountain View. We were really impressed by the speech Ann Rogan gave to us, in which she explained the core values and mission of Singularity University and even showed us her trainers, which were printed in 3D. –thank you Ann for transmitting your passion and positive energy with us!
SU is a Benefit Corporation learning institution whose aim is to “educate, inspire and empower leaders to apply exponential technologies to address humanity’s grand challenges.” Actually, the name of Singularity University comes form the fact that Singularity is defined as the point in time when computer intelligence exceeds human intelligence, due to rapid and accelerating developments within and between science and technology fields. These exponential growing technologies include artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology, biotechnology & bioinformatics (including DNA sequencing), medicine & health, neuroscience, networks & computing systems and energy & environmental Systems.
In the afternoon, we were also delighted by the speech of Dídac Lee, an entrepreneur by vocation and profession. Born in Figueres (Catalonia) and educated by his Chinese parents from Taiwan, he studied computer engineering and received a degree in business administration and general management from IESE. He is currently the director of New Technologies for FC Barcelona and the CEO of the company Inspirit, a holding of technology-based companies with a clear innovative profile.

When he was twenty-one and with hardly any resources, he set up his first company, IntercomGi, one of the first in Girona to provide internet access and to open an online business. As he likes to define himself, he is a restless dreamer and passionate about what he does. One of his core values is to live life in a sustainable way and his motivation everyday is to get up with a challenging project.
He defines his job as “overcoming adversities, risks and managing messes”. And, as he likes to say, “don’t confuse the word “impossible” with “difficult””. That’s actually the attitude that brought him to where he is now, with that passion and positivism he transmits.
Thank you very much Dídac for joining us and sharing your experiences, your humility and your positive energy; you are a great dreamer!!

We have ended the second phase of this exciting program. Four inspiring presentations have taken place today, and all of them with a common dream: to change the world through education, neurosciences, people and teams in companies, and finally smart cities. At this point I don’t want to give you more details about the different projects, but what I would want to say is that they are going to make you fly to another dimensions of understanding and relating with the world. Please, dont miss the final presentations!!!

On the other hand, we had the fortune to have Xavier Simó, founder of Inlea Foundation, and his colleague Ivan Lopez during the whole day giving us their important insights and perspectives of our presentations and projects. Thank you a lot for your time and support!

Its time to start the prototyping step and we all now that our efforts will be twice than the last two weeks, but our passion and dreams are bigger!

The final event is getting closer and for that reason our communication is fundamental to convey what we really want and synthesize with coherence and passion our projects. Therefore our lovely staff prepared a creative elevador pitch with water, jurys and 45 seconds to tell our projets. Yes, I ended up wet, and for sure I will never forget to get to the point at any pitch in my life!

For me, July 13, 2013 could be defined as one of the most amazing, inspirational, motivating and cathartic activities we’ve done so far in Imagine.

We started with a cultural breakfast at l’Atelier, eating delicious “pericos eggs” from our Colombian colleagues and listening to the valuable feedback from Joaquim Trias, a doctor in biology and one of the top names in the American biotech sector. Born in Barcelona, his entrepreneurial spirit took him to the heart of Silicon Valley nearly 20 years ago. He has helped found companies like Microcide Pharmaceuticals, Vicuron (acquired by Pfizer), Peninsula (bought by Johnson&Johnson), Anthera and Tetraphase. He is currently president of the venture capital and bio-pharmaceutical consulting firm JTPS.

After that, we headed to Point Reyes National Park altogether with Joaquim to start a great hike that took us from the most incredible forest landscapes to the impressive beaches surrounded by the Pacific Ocean. Interesting conversations arose while walking along the tiny little paths and the wild coast.

Some of us took a freezing bath in the Pacific water; others just had enough by feeling it in their feet We liked it so much that we even planned to camp there all night long. Although the mission was finally aborted due to logistic and feasibility reasons, as good dreamers we don’t discard to come back there and make it happen!!

It took us more than expected to finish the route, but when we finally got to the initial point and we drove to Point Reyes Station to eat some oysters. But again, the mission was aborted because the restaurant was closed… To compensate for that, we went to Petaluma to finish the day with a delicious ice cream at Lala’s Creamery.

I want to specially thank Joaquim for dedicating us his valuable time and all the feedback he gave us about our projects; we really appreciate his impartiality and his point of view about such diverse topics as education, women empowerment, smart cities and neuroscience.

Have you ever heard that quote that says “Life is not about how many breaths you take but about how many moments in life take your breath away”? That day would definitely be one of those moments. Thank you all!

In Imagine, every day is intense, full and exciting as one whole month in “real life”! In spite of that, surprisingly, we learn how to expand our time day by day a little bit. ☺

Today, for instance, we had a full 16-hours day!
Xavi was already waiting for us with Imagineta at 6:27 am , to be ready at 7.00 am for the call-conference with Madrid and the 78 Thinkids Project children, leaded among others by the 2011 Dreamer Albert Ventura, an awesome professional and person.

Some children presented us their ideas and then we shared with them our projects, asking for their point of view…. their feedback were incredible! We learned a lot from them, as they allow us to see different ways to approach issues; for instance children clearly showed some concerns about the neuroscience helmet appearance and came up with great insights for the Education Team.

Sharing and integrating Thinkids ideas, the Imagineta arrived then at Palo Alto and…Stanford. It’s such a crazy and thrilling sensation being once again in this powerful place and, after just tree days, feeling as confortable as we were at home.
Being a Dreamer is every sensation raised to the third…at least.

In Stanford, Josep Lluis was waiting for us to work on two “traditional” creativity methodologies (Scamper & Morphoal Analysis) in a – of course – Imagine disruptive way. In a glimpse of en eye the 4 teams were spread through all Stanford, generating new ideas and trying to capture the strongest ones on whatever support our creative mind could find. Quite impressive results came up!

After a quick lunch in Palo Alto, we met Angelika and her cute dog Charlie at StartUp Embassy for a storytelling masterclass. Her professionalism & experience, together with her strength, hearth and generosity, make every minute with Angelika an unforgettable moment and make us, literally, willing to absorb every single word through our skin, to integrate it better.
She gave us three minutes to present ourselves using storytelling techniques: the whole group was absolutely surprised and empowered by the pitch every Dreamer was able to prepare in such a short lapse of time…. Laughs, tears, emotions and great ideas. I had the feeling we even succeeded in surprising Angelika this time :-9

At 4 o’clock Alex Castellarnau was waiting for us ….at Ideo!! What a great feeling stepping into the world innovation Mecca, where the very same concept of the “mouse “ was born and where every year just one candidate is hired out of 10.000 cvs! I guess all the dreamers would have spent at least one week in Ideo headquarters.

Moreover, Alex presentation was a memorable one, full of passion, tips and key learnings, as the following concepts:

• Immersive realities: making the experience real
• Emotional Translogic, connecting through emotions
• Prototype as a way of learning, define indicators and testing
• Underdog: always be a challenger
• Break the Status Quo
• Coherence with what you honor

We’d need one entire book to develop just a 10% of the intensity and the experience we received from Alex in 1 hour….

The day ended at 22 o’clock, since after Ideo we went to visit Alvaro Sanmartin, a 2011 Dreamer that is now living the 500 Start-Ups experience with his project Floqq – an interesting e-learning platform with a lot of potential – . Alvaro showed us that being a Dreamer, once again, it’s not just about dreaming and that if you have the good idea, the qualities to succeed and the persistence to believe in your project, people can believe in you.

Coming back to the hotel, tired, emotionally moved and internally fulfilled, I realized that we have lived a day full of learning and received a lot of new information but, most of all, we have met passionate and generous persons that, through the gratuity attitude with which they shared their experience with us, really made us better Dreamers. Goodnight and thanks Imagine!